A social network can be an online system that provides a forum for geographically separated users to interact with one another. Social networks can be aimed at different types of social interaction, such as friendship and business networking. A user of a social network can have a profile page (e.g., a web page on the social network) that provides information about the user to other users of the social network. A profile can include information regarding a user's acquaintance relationships (e.g., friends, colleagues, schoolmates, etc.) on the social network.
A user can impersonate (e.g., assume the identity of another) another user on a social network by creating a profile page that contains content identifying the impersonated user (e.g., the victim of impersonation). For example, a first user can impersonate a second user on a social network by creating a profile page that contains identifying information about the second user, such as the second user's name, age, location, occupation, and photograph. An impersonating profile page may copy some or all of the impersonating content from the victim's profile page. Impersonation may be performed for a variety of reasons, such as malice toward the victim (e.g., impersonator has intent to defame the victim), and/or intent to usurp the victim's influence on a social network (e.g., impersonator able to garner the victim's reputation when recommending a product to the victim's friends).
Detecting impersonation on a social network has included manual review of an alleged impersonator's profile page and, in some cases, review of an alleged victim's profile page by a human.